If any readers wonder how to get it done on the water, here’s how the best in the world does it. As with most elite athletes, Mahe Drysdale (in black for New Zealand) looks like he’s having an easy row because all of the power goes into moving the boat and there is no wasted motion. In reality he is rowing at 34 strokes per minute for most of the race, but his clean technique makes it look easy. It’s unusual at this level to have someone control the race so completely. Check out the segment beginning at about 0:35 – look at how much distance he eats away from the German next to him on every stroke, even though he is understroking him. Amazing.

For the Crossfitters out there, imagine doing 250 unbroken deadlifts at 60% of your 1RM in less than 7 minutes….

Although you can’t see him much in the video, Ken Jurkowski from the USA had an equally amazing result by pulling into 3rd and making it onto the podium. Congrats! It had been historically very difficult for a US single sculler to achieve that in the last 10 years, so well done! I believe the US lightweight womens’ double also made it onto the podium in a later race! Thanks to RowingRelated for these great videos.